Comedian Chris Rock once famously opined that insurance should be renamed, “In-case-of.” You pay for insurance every month “in case of” some unfortunate circumstance occurring. Well, you better have access to an excellent attorney “in case of’ the other driver not having the insurance, or even the car, in his…
Dot your i’s and cross your t’s. We’ve heard it since kindergarten. Yet, sometimes it is easy to forget the basics when a case seems to be open-and-shut. In 2003, Mr. JL, an East Baton Rouge employee of Landis Construction Company (“Landis”), was injured on the job. Landis’ insurance carrier,…
Imagine you are driving home from work and you collide with another vehicle. Would your employer be liable for the damages? For most commuters, the employer is not accountable for any accidents that occur on the way to or from the place of work and the employee’s residence. But in…
Louisiana, like most states, requires drivers to maintain liability insurance (or less commonly, a liability bond or certificate of self-insurance) to legally operate a motor vehicle. In 1992, an amendment to this law explicitly allowing insurance companies to offer “named driver” exclusions in their policies, which allowed an insured the…
Whether we like it or not, bureaucracy pervades our lives. A failure to follow a single step of an administrative task can have far-reaching consequences. This is especially so when dealing with an insurance company. The case of Dr. James Moss is an example. Dr. Moss, a Shreveport urologist, suffered…
The term concurrent-cause is a legal doctrine that may be vital to your commercial property. If loss or damage occurs as a result of two or more causes, one event may be covered while the other is not. It would not matter if the events happened at the same time,…
In the law, words matter greatly. How even one word is defined can make or break a lawsuit. However, courts do not allow words to be defined willy-nilly. There are certain methods courts will use to define words. In the case below, we will see how the plaintiff’s case was…
The Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure provides that a court has wide discretion in granting a continuance (a postponement of the proceedings) in any case where appropriate. See La. C.C.P. art. 1601. But what constitutes appropriate grounds for a continuance? A court must take into account the specific facts of…
There are multiple requirements and policies that claimants must follow in order to be eligible to recover on a claim under a National Flood Insurance Program (“NFIP”) Standard Flood Insurance Policy (“SFIP”). See 44 C.F.R. pt. 61, app. A(1) art. VII sec J (2009). Failure to comply precisely with these…
The National Flood Insurance Program (“NFIP”) is intended to provide affordable flood insurance on fair terms. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (“FEMA”) is responsible for administering and regulating NFIP. There are multiple requirements and policies that claimants must follow in order to be eligible to recover on their claim. The…